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Meditations on First Philosophy (Descartes)
Meditations on First Philosophy (subtitled in which God's existence and the distinction between the human soul and the body are demonstrated) is an early modern text on metaphysics, natural theology and epistemology. Published in Latin by the great French philosopher René Descartes in 1641, and translated into French by the Duke of Luynes in 1647, the six meditations that make up this text have since then had a lasting influence on philosophy. The books are arranged as the reflections of someone over the course of six days, slowly unfolding as he learns to doubt all he knows, finds one piece of knowledge to hold onto, discovers certainty in God, realizes the criteria for truth and the causes of falsity, characterizes material things, and finds certainty in matter as distinct from the soul. Those arguments that Descartes presents for skepticism, God, and dualism had a lasting effect. Writings of subsequent Western philosophers are in many ways responses to Descartes' position. Purpose While not cause for hyperbolic doubt, the distance in time of Descartes' life is an obstacle to understanding the reason Descartes had to produce the Meditations. Nevertheless, he is very explicit in his reasons for dedicating this text to the Dean and Professors of the Faculty of Sacred Theology of Paris, viz. to demonstrate "that the human soul does not die with the body and that God exists" through philosophical rather than theological reasoning. We can be certain that as much as that was his intention in the dedication, it was his intention in writing the text. Another goal, one that is only inferred from the Preface and the text itself, is to establish firm methodological and conceptual first principles for work in mathematics and the natural sciences. To be sure, Descartes recognizes that answers to metaphysical questions do not need to precede work in science and mathematics but he asserts that any scientific and mathematical reasoning "presupposed answers to these questions." This is surely one motivation for Descartes to discuss methods for avoiding faulty reasoning and to distinctly know the nature of matter. If his only goals were theological, Descartes would not have devoted time to these problems. In addition to a conceptual and methodological basis for science, Descartes seems to have sought deep reasons for separating theological issues from matters of science. Anyone who accepted Descartes' dualistic position on the nature of the soul and the body would be compelled to accept that they fell into separate areas of knowledge. One could justify that their studies of the operations of the material world could not raise questions on the subject of the soul, God or the afterlife. Therefore, they could work unmolested by theological matters. Hyperbolic Doubt A cornerstone of Descartes' method in the Meditations is his prescriptive principle of hyperbolic doubt. At the start of the first meditation, Descartes sought to separate himself from the weak foundations of his childhood knowledge. If the uncertain foundation of his present knowledge could be overturned, then he could build a new foundation on which to pursue scientific knowledge. Accomplishing such a noble goal would leave a man both free from the false beliefs that once marred the core of his worldview and possessed of an unprejudiced, less distracted mind. His chosen method for wiping the cognitive slate clean is this hyperbolic doubt. This prescription advices doubt for every belief that is not completely certain or impossible to doubt. Taken to its endpoint, it can only accomplish the task Descartes has set before himself in the first meditation. Uncertain beliefs would be treated as false, and only purely self-evident beliefs would remain. Any knowledge that withstood this method of doubt would not only be knowledge beyond all reasonable doubt but knowledge beyond all possible doubt. Nothing can be more trustworthy as a foundation for the rest of a person's beliefs. For all these apparent benefits, there is a second possible outcome to hyperbolic doubt, one that Descartes kept in mind. If no beliefs are impossible to doubt then the end of Descartes' method would be that nothing is certain. Even this proposition itself would be uncertain. The apparent completion of hyperbolic doubt does not demonstrate with certainty that a person has no indubitable beliefs or that no completely certain beliefs are possible. However, Cartesian doubt has more to its method than hyperbolic doubt. The latter is a mere rule while the former is a complex methodology which incorporates this rule. On the whole, Descartes' methodological doubt implies: #Exercising hyperbolic doubt until only completely certain beliefs are left #Analyzing these evident beliefs into fundamental beliefs (which cannot be broken into more basic beliefs) #Discovering other beliefs that logically depend on these basic beliefs Category:Literature